4) “I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.” (No way, really? What an insight.)

5) “I wish that I had let myself be happier.” (No way, really? What an … insight? Wait a second. I mean, what? How do you “let” yourself be happier? That’s a thing? How do you “let” yourself be happy? Who wrote this list anyway?)

OK fine. So I got a little waylaid by this list. I kept seeing it on my timeline, so I clicked on it and read it, and when I got to that last one … well, it set off some personal alarms.

See, I never “let” myself be happy. Oh sure, I’m happy sometimes, but that’s because of outside forces. Something makes me be happy, be it a hug from my kids, a funny joke, the idea of someone shooting roses out their fanny.

But day-to-day, minute-to-minute, second-to-second? Meh. And I mean that literally. I’m usually pretty “meh” about it all. And that’s at my best. Otherwise I’m some combination of annoyed or angry. Annoygry.

So I read this listicle and did the five seconds of research required, and found out it started as a blog post, became a short article, and eventually a 256-page book titled “The Top Five Regrets of the Dying: A Life Transformed by the Dearly Departing” written by an Australian palliative care nurse named Bronnie Ware. Basically, she worked with people as they were dying, talked to them, gathered these insights together. And really, truly, those first four? Everyone knows them. And while they’re all worthy items to take care of, they all take work to accomplish, and a few of them come with some inherent risks. Don’t work so hard? Well, sure, but eating is also nice.

But that last one? The “let” yourself be happy? That’s actionable right now. Right this moment, and every moment thereafter.

It also jives with Buddhism, in which I dabble, and by dabble, I mean I have a few Buddha statues in my house. It’s the second aspect of the Eightfold Path, which pretty much states “watch your mind.” Make sure you have “right thoughts,” as thoughts lead to action, and if you have “wrong” thought, you’ll have wrong action.

Makes sense.

“Let yourself be happy” and having “right thought” seem like two sides of the same philosophical coin. And so …

And so it’s freakin’ hard to do.

I’ve been doing it for the last week or so, and so help me, I think it’s easier — wait for it — to shoot roses out my fanny.

I figure I’m awake for about 60,000 seconds a day, and probably actively engaged in something for about, what, 40,000 seconds? During that time, the ol’ brain is on autopilot, doing whatever it does. But those other 20,000 seconds? Each of those ticks is a vacuum waiting to be filled. And I’m finding I usually fill those spaces with “wrong” thought. Death, disease, the Mets, you name it, there’s usually some dread creeping in. And that usually spills over into my day-to-day, where I end up annoygry with everyone and everything.

So I’ve been working at “right thought,” working at “letting myself be happy,” working on “admitting a stupid listicle on Facebook is actually having a potentially positive effect on my life.”